Firefox 4 gets WebM support

The new WebM format is built around Google’s VP8 video and Ogg Vorbis’ audio codec. It is a royalty-free video codec which is now going head-to-head with the proprietary H.264 video format backed by Apple and Microsoft.

The H.264 format is owned by the MPEG LA consortium, which include Apple and Microsoft. The consortium has said that H.264 will be royalty-free until December 31 2015, after which time there could be charges imposed for its use.

Although WebM is not yet widespread, Google-owned YouTube has in place a test site for viewing WebM video online which can be used with a browser supporting WebM.